A Treason of Truths Read online

  Foreign dignitaries—visitors of any kind, really—were rare on the Vault. It was primarily a colony of scientists and visionaries conducting the boring, if useful, work of saving the world. No, saving was too personal for the Vault’s mission. Preserving the world would be the more apt way to put it. The Vault cared very little about who lived and who died as long as the information was preserved.

  Which was what made this whole summit so disturbing. Lyre struggled with it as she escaped the hall and started a serpentine path toward the director’s wing. The flotilla had formed during the events of the Crisis, most likely a survival initiative funded by some long-dead rich asshole. The floating city’s string of scavenged ships were anchored together and kept aloft by large, monstrous old-world engines that the modern world couldn’t hope to throw enough resources together to duplicate. But the Cloud Vault somehow had kept it flying, century after century, slowly replacing rusted-out metal with nano-engineered biotechnology that could grow faster than it withered or wore out.

  It was a technological marvel. It was also damned confusing. Lyre barely remembered the connected circle of hallways, stairwells, lifts and bridges that would take her to the neighboring section. It’d been more than a decade since she’d set foot here, and nearly that long since she stopped receiving updated intelligence.

  But Lyre had survived on her memory before. A crooked stairwell with metal steps and twisted vines for handrails dumped into a hallway hosting a series of reinforced doors.

  And two scientists.

  Lyre had melted into the rest of Alais’s attendants when Sylvere and Khait had introduced themselves. Even as the face of their Vault hosts, they were just scientists. It might seem odd for two scientists to host an international peace summit, but everyone was a scientist on the Vault, really. Bureaucrat was a function but not a position here.

  She’d been confident that they’d have no reason to recognize her, especially not in a crowded corridor. But their gazes drifted across the hallway to her and stuck. Sylvere was smiling and Khait had an even deeper frown than normal creasing his face. Lyre’s confidence required an adjustment.

  Sylvere whispered something to Khait that sounded like “Told you.”

  She didn’t say anything and tried to walk past with a vague, closed smile. Excuses and cover stories were amateur in Lyre’s opinion. Confidence and keeping your damn mouth shut could get you through ninety percent of covert situations.

  “Agent,” Khait said as she passed. “Or should I call you Scarab?”

  Lyre kept walking. The bushes thrummed and a trio of beetles the size of small housecats marched onto her path, blocking her way with aggressive clicks.

  This day was shaping up to be a ten percenter.

  “Good day, sir. The Lady Alais sent me with a message for the empress.” Lyre stopped, wide-eyed and confused. “Can you point me in the right direction?”

  “You can stop, Scarab.”

  Scarab. Some intelligence agencies named their agents after things that sang or crept, birds, cats. Not the Vault. The Vault knew the best information wasn’t stolen, it was infested. Vault intelligence named all their agents after their precious bugs. “I’m not Scarab.”

  “You were,” Sylvere piped up, eyes glittering. “Our best-placed informant inside the Empire.”

  “Funny, you say ‘our’ but I don’t remember seeing you around back then.”

  “I only joined the Vault a year ago, but I’ve heard the stories.”

  “Mother doesn’t tell ‘stories.’ Especially not to new scientists.”

  At the mention of the intelligence director, Sylvere’s mouth crept up into a disgusted look. Khait stepped forward before he could rise to Lyre’s bait. “I was around. And dealt with the aftermath of your defection.”

  “I was never a legal Vault citizen before being recruited,” Lyre said sourly. That made her something worse than a spy—a traitor. But not to them. “I didn’t defect. I quit.”

  “And that lost us valuable insight on the power landscape inside the Quillian Empire.” Unlike Sylvere, Khait kept his voice reasonable, almost bored.

  Lyre smirked to hide her pleasure at that. “Aww, had trouble getting a new busy bee among my people, have you?”

  “As you’ve actively worked against us,” Khait conceded. He didn’t seem appropriately angered by it. She’d have to sweep the new recruits and manor staff when she got home. Then she remembered with a pang that wasn’t her job anymore.

  “It’s no wonder recent events have spiraled out of control,” Khait continued.

  “You’re not placing this glorious fuckup on me.” Lyre stepped forward and one of the beetles took a swipe at her ankle. She cursed. “The Syn’s bloody shortsightedness nearly caused a war. If you want to blame someone, blame them.”

  “Oh. I do.” Sylvere’s smile went a little feral. “Trust me.”

  That didn’t reassure Lyre. “I’m just here to make sure nothing worse happens.”

  Khait was giving Sylvere an unreadable frown. It held a hint of concern that struck Lyre as odd. He turned that frown back on Lyre. “As are we. Honestly, I’m a researcher, I don’t give a damn what history you have with the spooks. But the Vault’s pulled Sylvere and me off our important work to babysit this event, and you were not included in the plan.”

  Lyre hummed. “How irritating for you.”

  Sylvere’s eyes narrowed. “We could throw you over the side right now and no one—”

  “No one wants to do that.” Khait cut Sylvere off with a look. Somehow, that wasn’t how Lyre suspected Sylvere was going to finish that statement, but the older scientist was obviously calling the shots. “All we’re asking for is your word that you’ll not interfere with the summit proceedings.”

  Lyre had no intention of sabotaging things, but she’d been in too many negotiations—listened to Sabine conquer too many negotiations—to make any promise that could be avoided. “I’m an Imperial citizen. I want peace as much as anyone.”

  “Not necessarily true,” Sylvere said. “You and your ice queen have a falling out, and you reappear here in the entourage of her political rivals. Seems to me you could be out for a little revenge.”

  Word couldn’t have travelled that fast. They did have ears in the Empire. Gods damn. Lyre kept her displeasure from her face. “I serve the Empire.”

  “For how long, I wonder? You have a history of such flexible loyalties. It’s a generosity that Sabine keeps you around,” Sylvere said, ignoring the tired look Khait gave him. He leaned in, close enough for one artful fluff of hair to brush her nose. “The empress does know? I’m afraid I couldn’t in good conscience keep such important data on her personnel from her. Could you?”

  It was a spy’s trick, believing your own lie to convince others. Twice as dangerous when it was a lie you really wanted to believe—that Sabine knew, and her past made no difference and there was nothing standing between them. It hurt to entertain, but Lyre embraced it anyway, relying on her expression to sell it. “Well. You said it yourself, we had a falling out. The empress isn’t stupid enough to let a little espionage ruin a working relationship.”

  Partially true. If Sabine knew, it wouldn’t just ruin their relationship, it’d ruin everything. Lyre’s employment would be the least of her problems. There would be nothing left worth losing. It was a gambit, relying on Sylvere to infer from that the lie Lyre wanted. She didn’t know the man well enough to be certain, but he already seemed primed for drama. The beetles clicked at her toes in the silence.

  “I see,” Sylvere said. It was the sulk of disappointment that told Lyre she’d gambled well. He was disappointed to lose a piece of blackmail he thought he’d had in hand. “The empress is a kinder woman than I would be.”

  “She’s the best I’ve met,” Lyre said, and it was easy because it was true. Easy didn’t mean it didn’t pluck an ache in her chest,
though. “I serve at her pleasure.”

  “As long as you mind your manners as our guest.” Khait seemed to have reached the limits of his patience for Sylvere’s line of questioning. “I don’t care about any of this but cause any disruptions and we’ll have a problem.”

  “Understood.” Lyre pretended not to notice when the vile beetles finally stopped menacing her toes and withdrew into the bush. She wondered how Sylvere controlled them—subdermal commands? A nano-link? Surely not. Poor beasts, tugged along like puppets. A shiver ran up her spine.

  “Scarab,” Khait muttered and departed, tugging Sylvere by the elbow after him.

  “It’s Lyre. Just Lyre,” she said to the empty air, the shadows of the bushes. She could only hope that one day it started feeling like the truth again.

  Chapter Eight

  After tangling with Sylvere and Khait, Lyre lost her thin hope to move through the Vault unrecognized. Might as well get it over with. But when she made her way down to the intelligence headquarters, she didn’t find armed agents or even spies. The doors were locked and dark, and the single guard at the door gave Lyre a curious if uncomprehending glance. He didn’t hold himself like one of Mother’s. In fact, the hallways seemed rather sedate in general. Had residents been told to avoid common areas for the summit? Lyre filed it as another in a string of Vault oddities, but it was time to get back to the party. She slipped back the way she came in a welcome silence.

  It was a peace that couldn’t hold. Lyre finished her check of the grounds and was unsurprised to see the empress herself in the entry when she returned. Sabine didn’t lurk—she could never lower herself to anything approaching inconspicuous—but she stood by a polished pillar—it might have been oak, had it not also been ribboned with threads of silver-green nanite—as if waiting for a royal escort. Lyre should know; she used to be the escort.

  But there was no smile on Sabine’s face now.

  “Your Grace.” Lyre stopped with a precise curtsey.

  Sabine looked as if she’d picked her nose instead. “Where did you go?”

  “Just checking the grounds.” And then, because Lyre could never resist tweaking Sabine when she looked constipated like that. “Can’t be too careful when protecting someone as notorious as the Lady of Scandals, can we?”

  An overly complicated emotion twitched at the edge of her lips for that. “What game are you playing here, Lyre?”

  “Just service to the crown, Your Grace.”

  Sabine stiffened, as if Lyre had intentionally struck a blow. “Alais doesn’t wear the crown, I do, and I didn’t want you here.”

  “Yes, because you’re behaving like a spoiled princess rather than an all-powerful empress,” Lyre snapped. A faint part of her regretted it, immediately, but that part was vulnerable and loyal, that still remembered the feel of Sabine’s cheek under her fingertips. Lyre had kept that part under lock and key since arriving at the flotilla. The rest of her barreled through the shock on Sabine’s face. “I know you don’t want me here—and I probably deserve that—but you need me here.”

  “Why? What do you know that I don’t? Tell me.”

  I know how the Vault works. I know how they get people to betray you. I used to be one of them. The truth pooled and died under Lyre’s tongue. Once Sabine knew, it’d be over, and Lyre had to save her first. She swallowed. “We don’t have time for the bounty of things you don’t know, Your Grace.”

  Sabine’s expression fell, then hardened. A protective layer of frost. “It’s too late for you to start worrying about my needs. You’re nothing but a citizen now, and Alais should never have brought you.” She pivoted and started walking away. The frost turned to ice in Lyre’s stomach.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making arrangements,” Sabine said, and disappeared into the banquet hall.

  * * *

  The hall had been transformed into a silver meadow for dinner. Silver, everywhere Sabine looked, rather than Empire gold. Against the shine and polish, the Syndicate Prime Minister and his men in their dark coats stood out like blots of tarnish that Sabine had the impulse to rub out. Remove. She still had so much anger—no, rage—from the loss of Meteore. But rage was for people who didn’t wield armies. She had to control herself. That was why she’d stepped out in the first place.

  Of course, Lyre had shown up and presented an entirely new target for her hurt.

  Sabine paused with the spoon to her lips. The Cloud Vault’s culinary taste left something to be desired. Being a floating ecosystem, they had to be using the freshest ingredients, but the soup tasted silty and tasteless to her tongue. Keeping up the kind of toothless chatter these kind of diplomatic dinners required was the simple part. Keeping the bitter turmoil from showing on her face was less easy.

  She hadn’t heard Lyre reenter the banquet hall after her, but she could feel a razor-sharp gaze gliding over the nape of her neck. Intense and cool, like a chilled blade. It made Sabine’s skin prick. She couldn’t work with a distraction like this.

  Sabine murmured an excuse and rose from the table. In her shadow, like always. Kitra stepped away from the wall and Sabine waved him forward once she was far enough away from the table to not be overheard. She didn’t have to raise her voice for the shadow lingering behind a column. “Alais enjoys her surprise tactics but she’s made her point. Call a shuttle for the northern retinue, Kitra. We don’t need any more distractions.”

  “You’re sending me away?” Lyre actually sounded hurt, and for a moment Sabine was caught between feeling sorry and feeling vindictive. Lyre swerved back into her view—on the left, she knew how Sabine hated people approaching from her right side. “You can’t, Sabs—”

  “Keep your voice down. And you will address me as your empress. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “Sabine—”

  What could she say? What could either of them say. They were here, and the hurt and anger in Sabine’s gut made her ill. Then a chair clattered behind her, immediately followed by the gathering sound of raised voices and dropped silverware.

  Sabine sought the epicenter of the disturbance. A figure in Imperial colors lurched over the banquet table, convulsing. The gangly flex of arms and red hair said it was Orric. Alais’s voice was raised over the din. “Get a godsdamned medic!”

  “Shit,” Lyre hissed, keeping pace as Sabine drew nearer while other nobles retreated.

  Orric spun as a new convulsion ripped through him, and even to Sabine’s untrained eye, she knew a medic would come too late. His face had gone ashen, with surreal dark veins bulging under his pallor. His mouth moved, a silent gasp, though no air moved through his struggling throat.

  His hand clawed at his chest, and as his panicked gaze tripped back and forth, there was a moment of horrific clarity as he caught Sabine’s eyes. He was just a boy. Just a weeping, terrified boy. As if a puppet on strings, his hand fumbled for the table and came up with a knife.

  It pulled movement out of Lyre, instinctual and instant. The moment a weapon appeared, she was moving. She inserted herself in front, Sabine shielded between her and the pillar. Weapons were not allowed on the Vault, but she’d produced a tiny blade from somewhere.

  In a moment, their roles were reversed. Sabine’s mind went blank, following Lyre’s lead. They were too familiar with this dance. Royal and guard. Crown and shield. When Lyre’s hand shoved her back, Sabine complied without a thought. It was too well ingrained in her. A moment’s hesitation, a flicker of doubt between a guard and liege could kill them both.

  And Sabine never doubted Lyre. Even now.

  So when it happened, Sabine only experienced it in a flutter of clues. A ragged-edged scream on the heels of a wet, tender crunch. A flinch as Lyre’s hand tightened around her arm, her soft curls brushing her face as Lyre pushed back against her, an instinctive shield. When Sabine could finally see around her guards, it took a moment for
her brain to make sense of it.

  The color was wrong. Silver and white, the black of the Syn, gold of Empire, those she could understand. But the red. There was so much red. Orric’s throat was a blossom of crimson where he’d stabbed at his own throat. Perhaps done in panic, in desperation to breathe, who could tell. Alais made a keening sound and had her hands clamped over the wound. Blood welled between her fingers in ribbons, too quickly to stop.

  An aborted sound, like a retch, escaped Kitra. Lyre clicked her tongue lowly. “Vomit if you gotta, kid, but don’t you leave your gods-damned post.”

  Kitra, to his credit, straightened, green around the gills but steady.

  Vault medics arrived, too late to do more than peel Alais away and verify that Orric was dead. When they tried to move the body, Alais released a snarl that didn’t sound entirely human. The medics wisely stepped back until their hosts arrived.

  The banquet hall had been a silver meadow. It was transformed into a bramble. Chairs and platters were upended amid the green decorations. Silver vines that had been delicate when dinner started now felt more funereal, twisted and askew around table legs. Sabine didn’t need to be told not to touch anything, and the appreciative glance Lyre gave her sent an ache through Sabine’s chest.

  Lyre’s gaze flicked to Kitra, and the two seemed to communicate some silent division of duties. Then her spy was off, slinking toward the cluster of diplomats that were not being nearly so careful. Kitra took up vigilance on her right and offered Sabine a hand. By the time they reached the group, Lyre was already pulling information from nobles.

  Orric had been straightened, in a weak attempt to restore dignity. A cloying, sour smell filmed the air. Sabine looked away.

  “He cut his own throat,” someone said.

  One of the guards grunted. “He was choking. What else could a poor bastard do?”

  Perhaps that had been it. But there’d been a jerkiness to his actions, a helplessness in Orric’s eyes right before. It sent a shiver of recognition through Sabine. That feeling, helplessness as your body betrayed you. Turned against you. Her heart stuttered and for a moment she was back in a bloody room, tortured with lockbots injected into her skin, and a calm little man in black came at her face with a knife—